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Fathers, your time off is past its due date

Jody Heymann, dean of the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and founding director of the WORLD Policy Analysis Center at the Fielding School, was cited in a Bloomberg Opinion piece about why paternity leave makes economic sense.

It’s 2018 and much of the world is still trying to justify why fathers matter.

The U.S. doesn’t federally mandate parental leave of any sort, bracketing it with countries such as Suriname and Papua New Guinea. Large swaths of Asia including India and China have policies only for maternity leave. New Zealand is the sole country with a primary caregiver policy that applies to mothers and fathers.

Ironically, even when time-off policies for fathers are in place, they may mean little in practice. Japan and South Korea, both deeply patriarchal societies, stipulate some of the lengthiest periods for parental leave. Fathers in Japan are entitled to 52 weeks of benefits covering around 60 percent of average gross earnings, the most generous among countries in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. However, only about 2 to 3 percent of new fathers take up the entitlement.